out this description. At the same time, they had 'offerings with Greek letters ;-and they use Greek letters are Cæsar's words of the Druids. But they even understood the astronomical cycle introduced at Athens by Meton: strange as this may at first sound, when applied to the supposed barbarism of our ancestors, perhaps the multa de siderum motu may be held to indicate that it is not really inapplicable. There are other points of correspondence. The island, for example, is compared in point of size to Sicily-a comparison which, if intended of Britain, would be sufficiently accurate for Greek legend, though not nearly so appropriate as what is also said of climate. For it was the singular felicity of the Hyperboreans that they lived sufficiently far north to be beyond the cradle of the north wind; their island was mild; so our physical geographers still remark that our climate is, from oceanic causes, far more temperate than that of the continent in the same latitude. So many points of correspondence ought to have been considered with more respect. The sacrifice of asses may have been either a local peculiarity or a Greek misconception.

Possibly the extravagance of some Celtic antiquarians may have provoked their censors to deny even their most legitimate inferences. At any rate, there is no great weight in the arguments by which Mr. Herbert impugns the propriety of applying the language of Hecatæus to ancient Britain. He thinks the Hyperboreans should be more to the north-east, because, among other reasons, Pindar placed them at the fountains of the Danube; he forgets, therefore, that Herodotus, whose geography would be quite as accurate as Pindar's, made the Danube rise about the city of Pyrene, or to the extreme south-west of the Celtica, which we have to take into calculation. There is indeed no doubt that the geography of stories of this kind might waver and vary almost indefinitely, according to the fancy of the speaker; yet it does not follow that there was no reality, from which the shadow may have been magnified or distorted as it floated along. The objection which seems most to have been felt, is the difficulty of supposing a communication between Greece and Britain such as was said to have taken place with the Hyperboreans. Probably, however, such hesitation only arises from our forgetting how ancient was the intercourse to which the hereditary traditions collected by Herodotus go back. It was not with the sausage-eating Demus of Aristophanes that the island priesthood exchanged gifts and oblations, but with the venerable fraternities who had presided over the rites which even in their decay struck the childhood of Eschylus with awe-with the eldest Delos, with Samothrace, and with Dodona. Is there anything in the

history

history of the Church of Rome, for example, which should make it a thing incredible for a priesthood, confessedly possessing ramifications throughout Gaul and Britain, to communicate with kindred bodies in Greece? It is a matter of undoubted history that as late as the time of Strabo some affinity was recognised between the religious rites of Samothrace and of Britain.* We are astonished that so thorough a scholar as Mr. Herbert should permit himself to sneer at a belief which, if it rest upon insufficient evidence, is at least in the direction to which such testimonies as we possess uniformly tend. We indulge in no mere dreams of what has been fancifully termed a 'patriarchal civilization;' but we have no less a shield than the authority of Niebuhr before us in venturing to assert that there was a Pelasgic period, which in the time of Thucydides belonged rather to the antiquarian than to the historian. It is difficult to understand how scholars should expect, or why they should desire, to stifle the belief, which is daily gaining ground, in a career of civilization extending somewhat longer backward than has been usually written. All that we know of Egypt, and all that the wise suspect of India, point in the same direction. Without straining unduly the scanty relics we possess of information as to the early state of Britain, we cannot doubt that there were Silburys and Aveburys, which bore the same kind of analogy to Argos and Dodona as the British Channel does to the Mediterranean. It is even possible we may ourselves in this paper have deferred too much to prevalent theories on the use of metals, in surrendering Stonehenge. In one of the Essays, placed third at the head of this article, the writer argues that the plough, the harrow, the water-mill, the glass blow-pipe, the chariot, the mixture of soils, the use of yeast, and the scarlet dye of the holmoak, were as much the property of the Briton as of the Roman. Such arts alone imply sufficient skill, if accompanied by a prodigal command of labour, to raise large masses, and to leave tokens, quite as highly finished as Stonehenge exhibits, of the graver's skill. It is rather to be regretted that the essayist has not appended his authorities; but we can trace a sufficient number of them to bear out his theory of a respectable insular civilization.

How far that civilization was sacerdotal, and how far popularand whether purely indigenous or a mere graft from some immigrant caste-are questions for more profound or more sanguine

Was it not probably an Avebury in ruins which Strabo describes in a field near Marseilles? It was a circle, he says, of enormous stones in a grassy plain, ascribed by some to physical convulsions, and, as early as the time of Eschylus, connected mythically with the story of Hercules and Geryon.-B. IV., pp. 251-2. ed. Falconer.

inquirers.

inquirers. Neither have we the slightest wish to over-rate them. No sermon has ever impressed us more vividly than the contrast which it was our fortune to enjoy, in seeing, within two consecutive days, Stonehenge and the Crystal Palace. What a stride from Hengist and Eldol to Paxton and, Owen Jones! Notwithstanding that the massive character of the stones leaves an impression of awe while the spectator is within the circle, yet, from the vastness of the surrounding plain, as soon as he gazes at them from without, they assume a dwarfish and unholy aspect, savouring, as it were, of canny Elshie. They neither climb to heaven, nor exhibit that power of combination and arrangement of parts which attests the ordered and disciplined intellect. Hence, it was with a sensation of relief that we soon saw Salisbury spire rising in the distance; and in less than four-and-twenty hours, after hearing in that glorious cathedral some portion of a ritual more holy than ever rolled through the misshapen columns of Stonehenge, we stood in the world's temple of concord at London. It was a change almost from a sepulchre to a palace -a vivid exemplification, as we conceived, of the onward march of human destiny under no less than the highest wisdom, and a memento to help forward the time when the nations shall learn

war no more.

ART. II.—1. Le Tre Costituzioni delle Isole Ionie. Corfù. 1849. 2. The Ionian Islands under British Protection. London. 1851. 3. The Patris. Corfù. 1849-1851. 4. Parliamentary Papers relating to the Ionian Islands, 1810-1852.

OUR

UR elderly readers may possibly remember that nearly thirty years ago we made an endeavour (Q. R., vol. xxix.) to explain and defend the policy pursued with regard to the Ionian Islands by the ministry of Lord Liverpool, and by Sir Thomas Maitland, the first British Lord High Commissioner. That cycle of destiny which occasionally brings events round again to the same point from which they started, has laid a duty upon us in 1852 similar to that which we discharged to the best of our abilities in 1823. We have now to set forth the unhappy consequences of a precipitate change of system in 1849. The questions at this moment demanding a practical decision are of unusual interest and complexity. In this region, however, the same game, or nearly so, has been played over again so repeatedly, and in such very distant ages, that, even had the inquiry no practical bearing, it would still be worth while, as a mere matter of historical

historical curiosity, to point out the manner in which a like combination of events has recurred.

Of the seven Ionian Islands it may be safely asserted, without prejudice to the mythical fame of Ithaca, that Corcyra, or Corfu, is the one which in all ages has played the most important part. It cannot, however, be said to occupy a peculiarly honourable place in the records of any age. The seditions of Corcyra have become a by-word among the readers of ancient history; and, unfortunately, both in that and in the sister isles, the tendency thereto does not seem to have abated during the lapse of twentythree centuries. Three times, at very wide intervals, has this Island found it necessary to abnegate, more or less completely, a political independence of which it was incapable, and to place itself under the sovereignty or protection of the power which in each of those respective ages was mistress of the seas. Corcyra was constrained to seek safety from the results of her selfish policy abroad and her internal factions, by throwing herself into the arms of imperial Athens; again, while the drama of old Greece was being reacted in medieval Italy, the same Island was driven to find protection against itself beneath the banner of Venice; again, in these latter times, the mad democracy of the Septinsular republic was gladly exchanged by the Ionians themselves for the iron rule of Russia and France in succession-and finally, for the firm but gentle protectorate of remote Britain.

It was in A.D. 1386 that Corfu placed herself under the sove reignty of Venice; and the remaining islands of the Ionian Sea successively fell during the next two centuries into what we may fairly call the most deplorable of all political conditions, that, namely, of the subjects of a distant republic. Strange to say, however, there has been formed a small knot of disaffected Ionians, who, in spite of the sad records and traditions of those miserable times which are so rife in their country, still affect to sigh for the days of Venetian bondage. This curious fact appears from the memorial against Sir Howard Douglas addressed in 1839 to Lord John Russell (then Colonial Minister) by Chevalier Mustoxidi- —a document which for the most part does little more than reproduce the objections urged in 1819, with greater show of plausibility, by Count John Capodistria, against the policy of Sir Thomas Maitland-but fully answered by that officer himself in the following year.* M. Mustoxidi ventures on the assertion that, far from being treated as colonies, the Ionians were the equals of all the other subjects of the Republic.' Any one at all acquainted with Venetian history knows well that the eastern

6

* See Parliamentary Papers of June 22, 1840.

provinces

provinces were always sacrificed to those in Italy, and that the real state of the Greek islands under Venetian sway was one of the grossest tyranny. In each island the executive was composed entirely of natives of Venice, presided over by needy proveditori, sent to enrich themselves, after the old Roman and the modern Turkish fashion, upon the spoils of the provinces. These officials never swerved from the maxims of government laid down by Fra Paolo Sarpi, and which are thus epitomized by Daru :

'Dans les colonies se souvenir qu'il n'y a rien de moins sûr que la foi des Grecs. Etre persuadé qu'ils passeraient sans peine sous le joug des Turcs, à l'exemple du reste de leur nation. Les traiter comme des animaux féroces; leur rogner les dents et les griffes, les humilier souvent; surtout leur ôter les occasions de s'aguerrir. Du pain et le bâton, voilà ce qu'il leur faut : gardons l'humanité pour une meilleure occasion.'-Hist. de Venise, xxxix. 17.*

In conformance with these amiable precepts, the Ionians were heavily taxed for the support of the Venetian garrisons and fortresses; the administration of justice was utterly corrupt; bribery was all-powerful; the collectors of the revenue calculated their exactions at tenfold the sum which they condescended to pay into the treasury; and open war was waged against a nationality which had endured throughout the vicissitudes of two thousand years. The tongue of Greece sank into the mere patois of the peasantry; and in a land where religious and national feeling had become almost identical, the unchangeable creed and ritual of the Eastern Church was allowed only to linger, under Latin domination, as a form of tolerated dissent.

On the fall of Venice, in 1797, the Seven Islands were transferred by the Treaty of Campo Formio from the eldest to the youngest of republics. But powers not usually found in harmony were willing to combine against the Goddess of Reason. The allied forces soon expelled the intruders of the West, and the Muscovite and Moslem despots united to bestow on the Ionians the blessing or curse of republican government under Turkish vassalage. From 1800 to 1807 Corfu and the six confederate isles set out upon a fresh career of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The ancient standard of Corcyræan freedom is best veiled in the decent obscurity of a learned language; † the new republic soon proved to be at least not a whit behind its predecessor in blood

The same writer says, xxxix. 14, Les colonies d'outre mer furent toujours gouvernées avec dureté; leurs fréquentes révoltes en sont la preuve.... Cette administration s'est compliquée avec le temps; elle s'est modifiée à quelques égards; mais toujours les naturels du pays en ont été soigneusement exclus.'

† ἐλευθέρα Κέρκυρα, χέζ ̓ ὅπου θέλεις. Strabo.

shed